


Don't let me stop you

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X Files Revival, The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 00:51:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8690203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: For @leiascully's X Files writing challenge: Interdependence





	

She walked through the corridors to the accompaniment of the clip of her heels against the shiny floor. Her footfalls echoed unduly. Nothing absorbed her sounds. She stopped, waiting for…what? She became aware of the sound of her own breathing, the rustle of the fabric of her shirt under her suit. The hollow of her back felt bare not just in the physical sense, but almost as though it were laid bare like a blank canvas for other people’s art. The thoughts in her head rolled freely around her brain but blocked up at her mouth, having nowhere to go. Scully found the room she was looking for and waited a beat before she knocked.

The light from the office was usually brighter than this. He even went so far as to flick the switch on and off a couple of times. While the clicking was satisfying, it didn’t make the room any brighter. Was it always this quiet? Where was the white noise that resonated through life? He chuckled aloud at the memory of the chunky white computer monitor that once adorned the desk and mused about what kind of decibel output it had measured. His voice cut through the silence. The laugh bounced off the wall and buried itself behind his bookcase, once cluttered, now designed with an orderliness he was frightened to break. Mulder stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed his territory. Straight, clean lines. Feng shui. Polished chrome. All paper tacks the same colour. Neater than it had ever been. But it still seemed dull.

A woman sat in a plush chair behind a grandiose desk. She wore her hair in a thick braid down her back and her black-framed glasses dominated her face. Her very young, unlined face.  
“Dr Scully, take a seat.” She motioned to one of two chairs in front of the desk. “This is just a formality really, but a necessary one.”  
Scully nodded. She waited for Mulder to fill in a pause that wasn’t even there with some unnecessary quip or awkward comment. She even looked to her side, to the empty seat.  
“St Peter’s is a school that prides itself on tradition and quality…”

 

He rummaged through the in tray, casting fleeting glances at the ponderous would-be cases that sat awaiting attention. Every so often, when his interest piqued, he opened his mouth to speak, but the chair on the other side of the desk remained empty. He checked his watch. Played a game of chess on the computer. Chewed the erasers off the end of two pencils. Finally made a clean three-pointer into the waste basket with last month’s expense accounts. Considered calling Scully about twenty times. No, twenty-seven to be precise.   
In the end, he found an old Dictaphone in his third desk drawer and began to speak into it, just to hear the sound of his own voice. He played it back and listened to his pompous drawl.  
“How the hell did she put up with this shit all these years?”   
He laid his head on the desk with a solid thump, pleased to feel the burn of impact. He was alive, after all.

Scully knew she was rolling her lips together. Ms Harcourt, the principal, was what Mulder would term a ‘self-serving, arrogant ass’, a term she’d always found quite masculine, but that at the moment felt supremely appropriate. Ms Harcourt glossed over the important academic records of the school, its mission statement and values system, in favor of trawling through the Scully-Mulder personal history, with some more than pointed questions about their marital status, job histories and medical records.  
“I’m afraid those details are, and will remain, confidential. I fail to see…” For the dozenth time Ms Harcourt cut her off mid-sentence, with a wave of her hand and a hard look over her glasses.  
“Dr Scully, this school is select entry. I’m sure you can understand our desire to…”  
She leant forward, knowing that while her size limited her capacity to physically impose herself on her subject, she could certainly engage her most authoritative FBI tone and glare when needed. “No, Ms Harcourt, I don’t understand. Our son has proven himself in testing as genius. He has an astonishing capacity to learn. He is socially advanced. He is capable of so much more than we can already see. He will flourish in the right institution.” She stopped and cleared her throat. A tactic she and Mulder employed in many interrogations, allowing the other party a moment to feel they can offer a rejoinder or a rebuttal to the lining of questioning. She looked to his empty chair, still half-expecting him to throw in a quirky statement, just to put the subject off-guard even further.   
Ms Harcourt’s eyebrows rose slightly as she saw her opportunity. Scully waited for her mouth to open before delivering her final blow.  
“But I can see that St Peter’s is not that institution.”

 

When his phone buzzed, Mulder actually did a happy jig in the basement. He briefly wondered about electronic devices, but figured that there had been other ‘moments’ that might have raised red flags. Especially that one time that Scully wore his favourite pencil skirt and low cut silk blouse and…  
“Scully. How’d it go?”  
“That bad, huh?”  
“Me, no. I’ve been busy, um, catching up on, um,” he looked at the waste paper bin, “paperwork.”  
“Sure. I can be there in forty minutes. Shall I order the…?”

She stabbed the end call button and breathed a deep sigh. She should have taken him up on his offer to come with her to the school interview. But she knew he was itching to get back to the office after the latest in a long line of diversions in their live, not the least of which was finding William again. Now they were working together, back with the FBI full-time; living together, back at the little house. When this new journey started, she wasn’t convinced they were the same two people. So much self-loathing and blame had divided them. Could they carry on as before?

The pepperoni pizza with mushrooms and green peppers and that spicy sauce drizzled over the top was, without doubt, the best ‘fuck-off-today-and-hurry-up-tomorrow’ food they’d eaten. William loved it too. They sat around in their PJs stuffing fat slices into their mouths, none of them speaking for a good long while.   
Mulder held her in his arms as she continued to come down from her second orgasm. Or was the third? “Were you always this needy, Scully?”  
She chuckled. “Were you always so selfless, Mulder?” She stroked his cheek and kissed the mole there. “It was disconcerting today, at that school.”  
“How so,” he whispered, nuzzling her earlobe.  
“You weren’t there.”  
He shifted back a little. “Are you implying that you needed me on this, Scully?”  
She smirked at his self-satisfied grin. “I could have used you during my interrogation of the subject.”   
“Oh, isn’t it nice to be so suddenly highly regarded.”  
She giggled into his neck. “Did you miss me, today. At all?”  
He pulled her on top of him. “Maybe.”  
“Just maybe?”  
“I could show you how much I missed you.”  
“By doing what, Mulder?”  
He rubbed his thumb over her nipple. “This.”  
“And, what else?”  
He lifted her up and over so he lay on top of her, bending to wash his tongue over her breast. “And this.”  
“Mmmm, nice.”  
He scooted lower so that his head nestled between her thighs, kissing and nuzzling her centre.   
“What has this got to do with missing me at the office, Mulder?” Her voice caught in her throat as she pulled thick strands of his hair through her fingers.   
He pulled his face away and smiled at her groan. “I thought I was demonstrating just how in tune we are with each other.”   
“I see,” she said, pushing his head back down. “Don’t let me stop you.”


End file.
